


Cross-Fandom Analysis: Lord Shen and W.D. Gaster

by ArgentDandelion



Category: Kung Fu Panda (Movies), Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Analysis, Character Analysis, Compare and Contrast, Death by Irony, Dubious Ethics, Gen, Hoist by His Own Petard, Nonfiction, Villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2020-09-26 11:34:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20389033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentDandelion/pseuds/ArgentDandelion
Summary: A cross-comparison between Lord Shen of Kung Fu Panda 2 and the Handplates version of W.D. Gaster.





	Cross-Fandom Analysis: Lord Shen and W.D. Gaster

**Introduction**

On Easter 2018, I watched _Kung Fu Panda 2_. It was on this watching that I felt bad for Lord Shen, the villain of the film.   
I think I felt bad for him on this viewing, and not when I originally watched it in a theater in 2011, due to greater experience in analyzing characters’ motives, greater empathy for (well-written) villainous characters, and, perhaps, realizing I admired him (or, rather, _parts_ of him) beyond just being a “cool villain”.

Shen, and my reaction to him, is similar to the interpretation of W.D. Gaster in Zarla-s’s highly influential _Undertale_ fan-comic, _[Handplates](http://zarla-s.tumblr.com/)_, to the point of warranting the following cross-fandom analysis.

* * *

(The analysis below is 1,264 words. If the reader is already very familiar with _Kung Fu Panda 2_ and_Handplates_, the reader may want to skip to “Paralells Between the Two”.)

* * *

_[Lord Shen Description](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/post/178677759097/cross-fandom-analysis-lord-shen-and-wd-gaster#codeword1)_  
_[W.D. Gaster Description](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/post/178677759097/cross-fandom-analysis-lord-shen-and-wd-gaster#codeword2)_  
_[Parallels Between the Two](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/post/178677759097/cross-fandom-analysis-lord-shen-and-wd-gaster#codeword3)_  
_[Doomed to be Unhappy (and Maybe Dead)](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/post/178677759097/cross-fandom-analysis-lord-shen-and-wd-gaster#codeword4)_

## **Lord Shen and Gaster Descriptions**

* * *

**Lord Shen Description**

As a child, Lord Shen turned his parents’ joyous invention of fireworks into something terrible: gunpowder. His parents, terrified by his invention’s destructive potential and Shen’s ambition, consulted a soothsayer. The soothsayer said that, if Shen continued on an evil path, he would be stopped by “a warrior of black and white”.

Overhearing this, Shen figured this meant a panda would stop him, and set out to kill all the pandas. He later returns, believing himself successful in his goal. He tells his parents what he has done, expecting them to be proud of him. Understandably, they were instead horrified. They sent Shen into exile, though it broke their hearts to do so, and it’s suggested this was their cause of death.

Years later, he returns to his home city with a cannon: a refinement of his invention and a superweapon in an era of kung fu. He kills a kung fu master his parents put in charge and takes over the city. He even replaces the throne, which he once played next to as a child, with one of his prized cannons.

Over the course of the movie, Po (a panda that had survived Shen’s extermination attempt as a baby) journeys to the city to stop Shen’s plot. When Shen commands his forces to attack Po with cannons in the film’s climax, Po deflects the cannonballs back at the attackers with a sort of mystical _aikido_.

Afterward, Shen, apparently projecting his own issues onto Po, asks how he could deal with the emotional scarring of not having (loving) parents.  
In the end, Shen doesn’t reform. Instead, he seems to conclude he can never be happy: when one of his cannons is set to fall onto and crush him, he doesn’t evade it (despite being quite capable of it) and closes his eyes, as if accepting his fate.

**W.D. Gaster Description**  
_(Minor details of the_ Undertale _backstory are clarified in accordance with *Handplates_canon)*

When a child, W.D. Gaster’s family had been all killed by humans in the first war of humans and monsters. While he had Asgore and Toriel as parental figures afterward, his family’s fate (and the culpability he believed he had in it) weighed heavily on his psyche.

Humans sealed the few surviving monsters underground with a magic spell. This spell, the Barrier, was so strong it required a power equivalent to seven human SOULs to break. After his son was killed by humans, Asgore declared war on humanity in revenge, stating that all humans who fall underground would be killed. However, he soon came to deeply regret it. Though he breaks his heart to kill the humans that fall into the Underground, he believes he cannot take back his declaration of war.

Gaster, hoping to soothe Asgore’s suffering somehow, aimed to create “living tools” by cutting out chunks of bone from his hands with a laser. (a very painful process) With these “living tools”, he would perform basic research needed to figure out how to break or bypass the Barrier.

Unexpectedly, these “living tools” grew into sentient skeleton children: Sans (or as he calls him, 1-S) and Papyrus (2-P). Though no sadist, Gaster believed “foolish sentimentality gets people killed”, and he felt he had no choice but to continue with his original plans of potentially very painful experiments on his “living tools”.

Much of _Handplates_ focuses on the resulting suffering and trauma of the “mad science torture dungeon” of Gaster’s lab. Though Gaster’s mental (and even physical) health deteriorates because of his single-minded focus on the often torturous experiments, he believes he has no choice but to continue.

In the end, he dies something like Shen: aimless, very alone, and laid low by an inability to progress on his goals. Sans, seeking to kill Gaster for all his cruelty, pushes him into the magical vortex of the CORE, a magical geothermal power plant and his invention. He is consequently lost, erased from reality and forgotten by all, with reality itself filling in the gaps.

## Parallels Between the Two

* * *

While the motives of Gaster and Shen aren’t quite the same, they have similar personalities. Their ambition is not, in itself, evil, but their drive to do something great (Shen and his gunpowder, Gaster and bypassing the barrier) motivated them to disregard things that got in the way—and sometimes, those things were _morals_.

Neither one, in the end, are killed by the hero, but instead by their own creation. Shen’s cannon falls on him. Gaster is pushed into the CORE, something he made, by Sans, also something he made, and this is a fate that could have been averted had he bothered to have safety rails installed.

The motives of both seem linked to their childhood experiences, and need for parental love and approval.

Shen’s desire for his parents to be proud of him shows they’re important to him, but they also don’t seem to care that much for him. Though exiling their son was the most merciful thing they could do after he tried to kill off all pandas, had they done something to make him feel loved and show they were proud of him before then, he would have no motive to do it.

Similarly, Gaster clearly cares a lot about his original skeleton family, though from what little is shown they seemed neglectful and emotionally unavailable. He tortures Sans and Papyrus in his mad-science torture dungeon at least originally in the hope of helping all monsterkind, but mostly for the sake of a parental figure, Asgore.

## Doomed to be Unhappy (and Maybe Dead)

* * *

There are parts of their characters that I pity, and parts I even admire.

Shen’s desire for greatness, ability to act upon it, and persistence are things I like. He is also an expert in tactics, and good at improvising when the heroes don’t act according to plan.

Gaster’s drive—-one could even say it’s single-minded—to bypass the barrier, even though he knows it’s difficult and has no clue how to do it, is something I admire. I admire his great intelligence (as arrogant as he is about it), even though it doesn’t seem to help him bypass the barrier, as he never gets closer to his goal.

These good things—virtues, one could say—are unfortunately misapplied in such a way it only makes those around them (and themselves!) miserable.

Though I feel bad for both Shen and Gaster, the two are essentially doomed to be, at best, unhappy.

Shen will never get his parents’ approval, as they are dead by the beginning of the movie. As the Soothsayer asks: when will he be happy? When he conquers all of China?

As much as he likes to act otherwise, his torture of sentient beings and the ethical scrutiny of said beings has an emotional toll on Gaster, so severe it even affects his physical health. If Gaster goes the “Dadster” route, he’ll still be unhappy because he’ll hate himself for his “cowardice”, the barrier is no closer to being broken, and a human might still come down and kill them all anyway.

Both Gaster and Shen had many choices to stop; for the former, it is especially obvious because of little sub-AUs and the recurring theme of Undertale of different “timelines” splitting off from one’s actions. Yet neither took those chances.

I feel bad for them, for all their suffering and helplessness, and yet…their villainy was no accident. They deserve their fates, not just morally but as a direct consequence of their actions.


End file.
